Secession Era Editorials Project

A NORTHERN FREE REPUBLIC:
STAND BY THE UNION.

Boston, Massachusetts, Post [Democratic]

(3 June 1856)

Resolved, That the repeated aggressions of the
slave power upon freedom, and the recent outrages
upon our brethren in Kansas, are only skirmishes
before the great battle threatened for the subjugation
of the northern freemen to do the behests of the
southern task-master>

Resolved, That the time has come when it becomes
the north to stand a unit, and to the question Freedom or
Slaves? return the emphatic answer of
Patrick Henry "Give me liberty or give me death."
-- Reading Resolves

Thus he (Rev. Mr. Kirk) only pointed to the
thunder cloud that hung over us. "God," said he,
"may avert it. Man cannot it. Coaxing, compromise,
letting alone, are all too late. Mr. Brooks is
nothing in this matter. Mr. Douglas is nothing in this
matter. The doctrine that a negro is not a man and
the doctrine that the negro is a man have now come
to the death struggle, and a nation will heave with
every convulsive struggle of the contest. Neither
will yield until a continent has been swept with the
deluge of civil war. -- Traveller's Report of Dr.
Kirk's Speech.

Madness rules the hour, in nullification-ridden
Massachusetts. With shame be it written, invocations
to civil war flame out in fanatic resolutions; in
the columns of the press; and at the corners of our
streets. The fanatical men who have so long held
that our constitution is a covenant with death, and
an agreement with hell, are now holding a carnival;
for men and presses, from whom the community have
a right to expect better things, are now playing into
their hands; are now at work in the sad business
of inflaming the public mind; and in preparing it for
the inauguration of "a northern free republic."
Yea, more; the labors of a crowd of driftwood
politicians last Sunday received their usual lift from the
political sermonizers who stand behind desks
consecrated to the healing voice of charity, and utter the
most shallow and inflammatory appeals. Madness
rules the hour in Massachusetts!

Patriotic citizens! Look at the sample we cite -
our space forbids other citations - of the mad
resolves which yesterday turned up at the Reading
meeting. Call you this expressing merely indignation
at the assault on Senator Sumner? Is this
wildness, this madness, this terrible invocation to
march up to the brink of the last dire necessity, -- is
this to go forth as the determination of the solid men
of Massachusetts? Are they ready to cast off in a
day what it cost so much precious blood to win and
so much God-given intellect to perfect and preserve?
No such occasion is upon us -- perdition and shame on
the Reading resolves -- as requires the Patrick Henry
tocsin to run through the land, Give me liberty, or
give me death! Shame on the whole Beecher,
Sharp's rifle, fanatical brood who are engaged in the
terrible work of harrowing up the community to
such a dreadful alternative! Shame on those who
would drive the "continent" on to the work of civil
war! There is yet a patriotism, a common sense, a
love of the glorious work of the Fathers, that will rise
up from its lethargy and smite to its original vile
dust the traitorous element.

And Massachusetts, now before the Union as a
public faith breaking state; Massachusetts, with the
fine and penitentiary for each member of her noble
volunteer militia who obeys an order to support the
Laws of the United States; Massachusetts, with rank
treason on her statute books -- is Massachusetts, in
the madness of the present hour, to be pushed still
further up? Is money to be authorised from her
treasury to go to Kansas; and is she thus to take the
first step in the line of substantial revolution? The
infamous legislative resolve is on the table. There
let it lie. Let it sleep the sleep of death.

Let all who have retained their senses set themselves
against the inflammatory business. Frown
upon political sermonizing. Frown down the very
dawn of the idea of a FREE NORTHERN REPUBLIC.
Support no movement that does not bear the
flag and keep step to the music of our glorious Union.

This document was produced as part of a document analysis project
by Lloyd Benson, Department of History, Furman University.
(Proofing info: Entered by Lloyd Benson. Not proofed..)
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